Monday, April 27, 2015

Throughout her career, comedian and actress Loni Love has
brought audiences into hysterics with her witty satire and hilarious
stand-up. Through her tireless pursuit of excellence, Loni has now found
herself at the top ranks of the comedy hierarchy.

When not busy circumnavigating the globe on the stand-up circuit,
she co-hosts The Real, the popular, daytime talk show on Fox-TV. She’s also an
author, having released her first book last year, “Love Him or Leave Him, but
Don’t Pick Up the Tab,” a part-memoir, part-relationship advice opus.

Growing up as a latchkey daughter of a devoted, role model
mom in Detroit’s
Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, Loni always had an unparalleled work ethic.
Working on the General Motors assembly line in High School, she found a passion
for electrical engineering which landed her a scholarship to Prairie View
A&M University
in Texas.

It was there that she first took to the stage and fell in
love with stand-up comedy, routinely getting gigs throughout college. Upon
graduation, she landed an engineering job in California and headed west to pursue her
dream.

After feeling out the Los Angeles comedy club
scene and becoming a regular at the legendary Laugh Factory, Loni reached full
steam in 2003 when the electrical engineer by day / stand-up comedian by night
was chosen for the comics showcase at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. Soon thereafter,
she won the Jury Prize for Best Stand-Up and was a finalist on CBS TV’s revival
of Star Search.

Her comedic flair and entertaining presence landed Loni a role in Soul Plane
alongside Tom Arnold, D.L. Hughley, and Snoop Dog. On the small screen, she’s starred
in her own half-hour special for Comedy Central, and has also been seen on the
channel’s Premium Blend, Weekends at the DL, and Chocolate News.

Loni’s very own one-hour special entitled Loni Love: America’s
Sister aired on Comedy Central to rave reviews. Here, she talks about her
latest outing as Donna Erricone opposite Kevin James in Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.

Kam
Williams: Hi Loni, thanks for the interview.

Loni Love:
Hey, Kam! No problem.

KW:
What interested you in Paul Blart 2?

LL:
I loved the script. I love the process of it’s being a
family-friendly movie that also has action. And I also like the fact that the
character I’m playing is the only mall cop that can actually fight. I thought
the picture was really cute and I’m just really glad to be a part of it.

KW:
The two of you were hilarious playing off each other. But
there was one moment that gave me goose bumps. That was when she said, “If you
ever need a Jewish doctor, mention my name. I could drop dead in any of the
original 13 colonies, and there’d be a doctor to revive me.”

LL:
[LOL] We joked so much that day, and a lot of people have
asked me about it. Her passing is such a tragedy, but we do have our memories
of her. The thing people don’t know is that after that interview, she took so
much time with me. She spent the whole day with me. I was really amazed by her,
and I felt very honored. But it was just a very creepy, weird coincidence that
she joked about that.

KW:
Why did you go from engineering to comedy?

LL:
Because I was the worst engineer in the United States of America.
[Laughs] No, I started doing stand-up in college, but I promised my mother that
I would finish my engineering degree first. When I got a job in L.A., I started doing
engineering, during the day, and stand-up, at night. Then, I got laid off in
2002, and never looked back.

KW:
You still stayed busy. Besides acting and stand-up, you found time to write
your relationship advice book, “Love Him or Leave Him, but Don’t Get Stuck with
the Tab” and to host Café Mocha Radio. Where do you find all the time?

LL:
One thing Joan taught me was to never turn any gigs down. In
this day and age, you have to multi-task to have a career and to get the
exposure that you want. Through doing Café Mocha Radio, I was actually able to
interview President Obama and the First Lady. Things I would never have dreamed
of have happened to me because if I can schedule it, I’ll do it. I was raised
in the Brewster Projects in Detroit,
and my mom taught me to work hard. So, when I was offered an opportunity to
publish a book, I hunkered down and wrote it. I’ve been a touring comic for
over a decade, and to get a chance to be on a talk show every day is a comic’s
dream come true. So, all the things I’ve done in the past was training for what
you see today, which is really to just be an entertainer.

KW:
Is there any question no one ever asks you, that you wish someone would?

LL:
I wish people would ask me: What is your favorite body part.

KW:
Okay, what is your favorite body part?

LL:
My knees! I have exotic knees.

KW:
What is your guiltiest pleasure?

LL:
Shoot! Anybody who knows me, knows that I love bacon.

KW:
What is your favorite dish to cook, bacon and eggs?

LL:
I love anything with bacon. Bacon and eggs… I’ll wrap bacon
around shrimp… I’ll dip some in chocolate and serve it for dessert… anything
with bacon.

KW:
The bookworm Troy Johnson question: What was the last book
you read?

KW:
The Teri Emerson question: When was the last time you had a good laugh?

LL:
Just a few minutes ago, when we were talking about Joan.

KW:
Was there a meaningful spiritual component to your
childhood?

LL:
I was raised by a single-mother who made sure I had the
guidance of prayer. If you grew up in the projects during the crack era, you
had to have some type of faith. And my mom always taught me to pray before I
went to school. I think that was very important because there were a lot of
things that could’ve happened to me that didn’t because of my mom’s encouraging
me to have faith.

KW:
The Ling-Ju Yen question: What is your earliest
childhood memory?

LL:
Oh my goodness! My earliest was my first day of pre-school
which I remember because I got excited seeing that there were tricycles there.
That made me want to go to school every day.

KW: When you look in the mirror, what
do you see?

LL:
I see a very hard-working entertainer, and I’m very happy
about how my process is going.

KW:
If you could have one wish instantly granted, what would
that be for?

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KamWilliams.com

The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.